Friday, 27 September 2013

BELVIQ to help fight the Global Epidemic of Obesity

What is Arena Pharmaceuticals doing to make BELVIQ a success in the long-term?

Arena is developing novel therapeutics
that target GPCRs. The company's lead product BELVIQ is FDA approved for
chronic weight management and was launched in June by Eisai. Arena is also
looking at expanding BELVIQ not just in U.S., but to other markets worldwide
and want to make this product available globally to help fight the global
epidemic of obesity.

So what is BELIVIQ?

BELVIQ is a novel single agent for
chronic weight management discovered and developed by Arena Pharmaceuticals.
How does it work? It's believed to decrease food consumption and make you feel
full. So, what happens is, you feel full, you don't want to eat, you don't want
to eat, you don't have those cravings and when you do eat, you eat less. Arena’s Phase 3 program has about 8,000
patients, a very good safety and efficacy database.

Physician awareness; this is the first
phase of any launch campaign. If the physician doesn't know about the drug,
they can't prescribe it. They have to understand the benefit profile as well as
the safety profile and who the appropriate patients are for the drug very, very
important in the weight loss for a weight loss agent and a weight maintenance
agent because you want to see those patient successes out of the game. So Eisai
has developed a very comprehensive plan with many touchpoints for physicians.

Chronic weight management with BELVIQ
and with the efficacy associated with the drug, they can actually order the
pivotal trial, the general articles as well as if they just want to get the
top-line results they can get those.